this subject been around here and there before. where i live they compost all compostable waste they chip up old furniture and lanscaping timber/logs you name it, it gets added to garden and tree lopping waste, along with up to medium grade industrial liquid waste and the humus from the sewerage treatment works. over here they sell it to gardeners sometimes give it away, it goes to blenders of all sorts of products ie.,. potting mix, soil improvers, etc.,. and gets sold over the counter. the heaps they compost it in and mix the liquid waste into obviously get hot, how hot dunno? the stuff that goes to potting mix blenders and baggers of soil improvers is likley screened but that from the dump sites can have all sorts of stuff in it notable pieces of plastics that get mixed into the stream early on. it is in all over the counter product. to use or not to use, i follow the regime so long as you are fully educated into what something may contain and that product is all that is available then what to do? use it i would say but maybe sparingly. we all use potting mixes so very likley we are all using the stuff in someway anyway? if gardeners don't use it they will put more of it onto conventional farms that is the thrust so maybe down track it will no longer be available to gardeners. a vexing question? is this the lesser of 2 evils? len Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

Thanks so much for posting this...most interesting to look at. That being said, there was little I liked. I always look at rooms first with "do I want to live here?" Perhaps that's not the best way, but it's instinctive. Then I look at pieces and parts to see if there are particular elements that I like. It says something to me when the 2 rooms I liked best were the wine cellar and the laundry. Loved the ceiling in the wine cellar, and loved the wallpaper in the laundry. The family room wasn't bad and I really liked the glossy ceiling and the color. The wood chest in the LR under the orange lamp was gorgeous. Then I look for trends or themes and see what I think of them. I see the big trend in wall treatments and wall paper. While I'd never want to live with it, I thought the DR mural was amazing, and liked the spray can art. But for the most part, despite the fact that I typically love wallpaper, I found little to like here. I so hate the wall treatments in the "cozy powder room" that I'd be looking for someplace else to do my business. Frankly, the ceiling fixtures were simply odd and fall in the category of, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. As is the built-in water dish and pee pad for the dog. Yuck. I especially did not like the yard installation. I'm a country gal and what I hate about going to the city is you are surrounded by walls so rarely get to see the sun shine unless you look straight up. Why I'd purposely install something in a yard with the same characteristic is beyond me. Sort of reminiscent of the Vietnam Memorial, sinking into the earth. Perhaps it's a lack of training on my part, but when I think of Julia Morgan, I think of San Simeon, and I don't get that at all out of the foyer. I see the structural elements but that would work for Roebling or many others just as well.

Have you done the Exploratorium? It's a science museum but different from any other I've ever been to. Very hands on and more to do for all ages. We thought we'd spend an hour or two there and ended up spending most of the day. Also, the musee mecanique is an arcade down near one of the piers filled with antique coin-op game machines - many dating to the 1920s and even earlier. It's free to get in - it only costs the quarters that you spend on the machines. My 13 year old loved it -- it was the one thing he asked to go back to. Several times! http://museemecaniquesf.com/

My current main pests are squirrels, and they eat my apples, but I do not have problems with birds. In Venice, birds would eat a lot of my figs, but mainly the ones at the tops of the trees that I could not reach anyway - plus I always got way more figs than I could eat/give away, or use. I do miss my fig trees. We have an electronic contraption that is supposed to scare away pests, but I don't think it works that well. We got it to keep raccoons out of our fountains. Right now I have pitaya that is beginning to fruit, and so I am going to have to build some cages to enclose the fruit to prevent possums (or whatever) from eating them before I do. One pitaya flower seemed to get pollinated without my help, and I'm not sure how that happened, but I forgot about it the night the flower opened. The rest I hand-pollinated. I'm expecting ripe fruit by the end of the month. We had a lot of pitaya in Brazil, and pitaya juice is perhaps my favorite juice - after guanabana, and I can get that at the Mar Vista farmers' market, imported from Oaxaca. They also have mamey ice cream, which used to be impossible to find, but now I am finding mamey paletas everywhere. I also need a Jetsons' Rosie. I never even noticed her attitude - I've had to deal with maids that were worse.